Following the example of London, Climate protesters are blocking Ministry of Ecology and headquarters of multinationals at La Défense.

Hundreds of climate activists are blocking access to the French Ministry of Ecology, Energy and Sustainable Development and the headquarters of Société Générale, Total and EDF in Paris.

As part of the International Rebellion Week led by Extinction Rebellion, more than 14 climate groups called to ‘block the Republic of Polluters’. They denounce the ‘immobility’ of President Macron and his ‘toxic alliances with big polluters’.

This is one of the biggest civil disobedience mobilisations ever organised in France.

A country is already preparing for the end of oil, even if the shortages of gasoline are not intentional. Factories are closing, there are no more noisy cars and many can't go to work any more, but on the face of it, most people are taking it well.

Today, I’m going to talk about Syria, and the shortage of gasoline. Syria was a country at war, it is now a country at a standstill. While the fighting has almost stopped, except in the small pocket of Idlib in the North West, the population faces a calamity of a new kind: the shortage of gasoline. Recurrent since the beginning of the civil war in 2011, this problem worsened at the beginning of the month, because of the increased US economic pressures on Syria, paralyzing transport and activity in areas under government control.

A flow of photos and videos, taken in Damascus, Aleppo, Homs or Hama, the country's major cities, and broadcast on social networks, show scenes never seen in eight years of civil war: queues of hundreds of meters in front of the rare pumps still open, traditionally congested avenues almost empty of cars in the middle of the day, streets cluttered with garbage because the pick-up trucks can not start any more, and abandoned vehicles on the side of the roads.

"This crisis is much more severe than the previous ones," says Saeed Abu Zafer, an Aleppo engineer, joined by WhatsApp. The streets of the city are deserted, it is as if there was a curfew. "I had to give up going to work, because there are almost no collective taxis," says Mohamed Abu Ahmed, a teacher, who lives in the same city. "Most of the factories have stopped working and the ones that are running still have a little bit of fuel left," said Mohamed Nahhas, an economist from Damascus. "It's like being sent back to the Stone Age. "

Under a leaden sky, six rangers walk silently in single file through Vohibola, one of the last primary forests in eastern Madagascar.

Alert to the slightest movement and sound, Michael Tovolahy's patrol is tracking poachers who are inflicting grievous harm to this jewel of biodiversity.

The poachers are targeting lemurs, primates battling the threat of extinction, and are chopping down trees, some of them rare hardwoods, to burn for charcoal.

"In this forest, there are at least 20 indigenous animal species, including six types of lemur, and 150 species of tree," says Tovolahy, whose nickname is Nabe.

"Because of these logger-poachers, I fear that this forest will one day be no more -- it will be just an empty space, where developers will grow walls of concrete."

A terrible irony is that a 2014 documentary, "Island of Lemurs," which did so much to draw attention to the cuddly animals' plight, unwittingly encouraged a market to have them as caged pets.

Some kill the harmless creatures for food, others sell them as pets -- and to get to their prey, they chop down precious tropical trees.

"Nocturnal lemurs are very easy to capture because they sleep in the daytime," explains Tovolahy.

The poachers cut down the trees surrounding their nest, which provides the lemurs with a means of flight. All they have to do then is to shake the tree until the animal falls out.

Lemurs are among the many wildlife treasures that are unique to Madagascar.

Out of 111 recorded lemur species, 105 face the threat of extinction, says the Lemur Conservation Network (LCN).

Other damage to Vohibola and its natural population is being inflicted by the simple need for wood for cooking.

The forest patrol frequently encounters the dismayng sight of empty spaces and mounds of bark -- the traces of illegal logging to take trees, burn them and sell the charcoal to Madagascans.

Vohibola itself is a haven for an extraordinary species -- the mouse lemur.

From its head to the tip of its tail, this nocturnal animal (genus Microcebus) measures under 27 centimetres (11 inches), making it the world's smallest primate -- and, according to the International Conservation of Nature (IUCN), among the most endangered of all vertebrates.

Tonight, I'm going to talk about the International non-profit organisation Global Witness that published a report yesterday, stating that the $4.9 trillion invested in oil and gas exploration is incompatible with global climate goals.

Exxon Mobil is forecast to spend the most in new fields over the next decade.

The report, Overexposed, compares industry forecasts for investment and production with climate scenarios used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Overexposed finds that oil and gas production from fields in development or not in production would exceed what climate scenarios indicate could be produced while still limiting global warming to 1.5°C, as per the terms of the Paris Agreement.

According to the report, the $4.9 trillion worth of investments in oil and gas are only compatible with the Paris climate goals scenarios that assume massive carbon capture and removal are used in the future. Overexposed claims this cannot be assumed as the technologies for such carbon removal are unproven at scale, with only two power stations in the world capturing CO₂ following investments of $28bn.

The report adds that ExxonMobil is expected to spend the most in new fields over the next decade, followed by Shell. These two multinationals, along with Total, BP and Chevron are expected to spend over $550bn on oil and gas production and exploration.

Senior campaigner at Global Witness and author of the report Murray Worthy said: “There is an alarming gap between the plans of oil and gas majors and what the latest science shows is needed to avoid the most catastrophic and unpredictable climate breakdown.”

“Investors will rightly be concerned that despite industry rhetoric to the contrary, the oil and gas sector’s spending plans are so drastically incompatible with limiting climate change. This analysis should encourage the escalation of investor engagement efforts to challenge oil and gas majors to credibly align their business plans with the Paris goal.

“Blindly pushing ahead comes with huge financial risks for investors, either as a result of the transition to a low carbon economy, or as the devastating consequences of a changing climate stack up.”

The report comes ahead of BP and Shell’s annual general meetings in May, in which they are expected to face questions from investors about their global climate goals. Both oil majors have recently made efforts for transparency in its climate change targets, with BP and Shell publishing an audit of its trade associations’ climate positions on 3 April.

Despite this, Global Witness reports that “both companies forecast investments are far from aligned with achieving the Paris goals”. BP also came under criticism in March for lobbying against key methane regulations in the US despite claiming to support the Paris Agreement.

I found an interesting article in the Sydney morning Herald, and I'm going to paste it here, I'm pretty sure that the ones living in the Arabic Peninsula will read it with great interest.

Saudi mystery: World's largest oil field is fading faster than anyone knew.

It was a state secret and the source of a kingdom's riches. It was so important that US military planners once debated how to seize it by force. For oil traders, it was a source of endless speculation.

Now the market finally knows: Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, the world's largest conventional oil field, can produce a lot less than almost anyone believed.

When Saudi Aramco on Monday published its first ever profit figures since its nationalisation nearly 40 years ago, it also lifted the veil of secrecy around its mega oil fields. The company's bond prospectus revealed that Ghawar is able to pump a maximum of 3.8 million barrels a day -- well below the more than 5 million that had become conventional wisdom in the market.

"As Saudi's largest field, a surprisingly low production capacity figure from Ghawar is the stand-out of the report," said Virendra Chauhan, head of upstream at consultant Energy Aspects in Singapore.

The Energy Information Administration, a US government body that provides statistical information and often is used as a benchmark by the oil market, listed Ghawar's production capacity at 5.8 million barrels a day in 2017. Aramco, in a presentation in Washington in 2004 when it tried to debunk the "peak oil" supply theories of the late US oil banker Matt Simmons, also said the field was pumping more than 5 million barrels a day, and had been doing so since at least the previous decade.

The prospectus offered no information about why Ghawar can produce today a quarter less than 15 years ago - a significant reduction for any oil field. The report also didn't say whether capacity would continue to decline at a similar rate in the future.

Aramco wasn't immediately able to comment.

The new maximum production rate for Ghawar means that the Permian in the US, which pumped 4.1 million barrels a day last month according to government data, is already the largest oil production basin. The comparison isn't exact - the Saudi field is a conventional reservoir, while the Permian is an unconventional shale formation - yet it shows the shifting balance of power in the market.

Ghawar is so important for Saudi Arabia because the field has "accounted for more than half of the total cumulative crude oil production in the kingdom," according to the bond prospectus. The country has been pumping since the discovery of the Dammam No. 7 well in 1938.

On top of Ghawar, which was found in 1948 by an American geologist, Saudi Arabia relies heavily on two other mega-fields: Khurais, which was discovered in 1957, and can pump 1.45 million barrels a day, and Safaniyah, found in 1951 and still today the world's largest offshore oil field with capacity of 1.3 million. In total, Aramco operates 101 oilfields.Aramco produces about 10 per cent of the world's crude.

The 470-page bond prospectus confirms that Saudi Aramco is able to pump a maximum of 12 million barrels a day - as Riyadh has said for several years. The kingdom has access to another 500,000 barrels a day of output capacity in the so-called neutral zone shared with Kuwait. That area isn't producing anything now due to a political dispute with its neighbour.

While the prospectus confirmed the overall maximum production capacity, the split among fields is different to what the market had assumed. As a policy, Saudi Arabia keeps about 1 million to 2 million barrels a day of its capacity in reserve, using it only during wars, disruptions elsewhere or unusually strong demand. Saudi Arabia briefly pumped a record of more than 11 million barrels a day in late 2018.

"The company also uses this spare capacity as an alternative supply option in case of unplanned production outages at any field and to maintain its production levels during routine field maintenance," Aramco said in its prospectus.

For Aramco, that's a significant cost, as it has invested billions of dollars into facilities that aren't regularly used. However, the company said the ability to tap its spare capacity also allows it to profit handsomely at times of market tightness, providing an extra $US35.5 billion ($50.2 billion) in revenue from 2013 to 2018. Last year, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said maintaining this supply buffer costs about $US2 billion a year.Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih.

Aramco also disclosed reserves at its top-five fields, revealing that some of them have a shorter lifespans than previously thought.

Ghawar, for example, has 48.2 billion barrels of oil left, which would last another 34 years at the maximum rate of production. Nonetheless, companies are often able to boost the reserves over time by deploying new techniques or technology.

In total, the kingdom has 226 billion barrels of reserves, enough for another 52 years of production at the maximum capacity of 12 million barrels a day.

Today, I'm going to hold a conference about Arjowiggins papiers couchés.It's a sad story, since the main factory of Arjowiggins is closing and I advise shadow.97 or Vasudev not to read this piece of news if they find it depressing.

The failure of the biggest Arjowiggins mill in France has resulted in many layoffs in France and knock-on job losses in the UK. At the end of last week it was announced that the Bessé-sur-Braye mill was going into liquidation, with the loss of 580 jobs.Following the order of the French Court on Friday 29 March for the liquidation of Arjowiggins Group subsidiary Papier Couches, Performance Papers has been forced to cease operations in the Uk too, resulting in all 10 members of staff based in Basingstoke being made redundant with immediate effect.

Bessé-sur-Braye was part of the Arjowiggins Graphic Papers business unit. It made a number of well-known papers including Cocoon and Cyclus.The 580 employees of Arjowiggins Papers lying Bessé-sur-Braye began receiving April 17 their letter of dismissal. On 29 March, the Nanterre Commercial Court ordered the liquidation of Arjowiggins Papiers Couchés in Bessé-sur-Braye and the partial sale of the Bourray factory.Note that a few days ago, a dismissed employee put an end to his days. The 53-year-old was working for Arjowiggins Coated Papers for 33 years. Married and father of a child, he killed himself on April 23, after receiving his letter of dismissal.

He was believed to be dead or sick. Many were worried about his fate, including the American government.

Al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State organization, appeared in a new video for the first time in five years. He declared that the attacks on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka were fomented in retaliation for the loss of the city of Baghouz, Syria.The man, who appears sitting cross-legged on a cushion, claimed that the IS will "take revenge" on behalf of its killed members and that the fight against the West is "a long battle".This city was the last stronghold of the jihadist group in eastern Syria, which fell on March 23, 2019.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7QVY7nq4Zc